Iranian president confirms increase of gasoline price

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has confirmed sharp increase in gasoline price in the next Iranian calendar year, which starts on March 21, 2014, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on Jan. 30.

Iran's national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year envisages an average increase of 33 percent for the energy carriers (oil, gas, gasoline, etc).

Rouhani has confirmed that the gasoline price may increase highly compared to other energy carriers.

Semi-subsidized gasoline is currently sold at 4,000 rials (about 16 cents based on official rate of 24,866 rials per each USD), while the free market gasoline price is 7,000 rials.

Iranians with cars currently receive a monthly allowance of 60 liters at the semi-subsidies price and have to pay 7,000 rials per liter for larger volumes.

Iranian MP Jalil Jafari said on Jan. 21 that increasing the price of gasoline up to 18,000 rials per liter may cause high inflation, Iran's IRNA News Agency reported on Jan.21.

Jafari, a member of Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Energy Commission went on to note that the best price for gasoline is 7,000 rials per liter for semi-subsidized gasoline, and 10,000 rials per liter for free market gasoline.

"Increasing the price of gasoline is inevitable, but the rising process should be implemented gradually in order to prevent imposing sudden economic pressure on the citizens," Jafari added.

According to the MP, Iranian government was supposed to increase energy carriers' prices by 38 percent in the current Iranian calendar year (which started on March 20, 2013) but refused to do so in order to prevent further inflation.

Iran's average gasoline consumption currently stands at 68 million liters per day.

Over 6.534 billion liters of gasoline was consumed in Iran during the summer this year.

The figure is 500 million liters more than the same period of time previous year, the IRNA News Agency reported.